


Cause and Effect

by Feygan



Series: Fate of the X-Men [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men (Movies), X-Men Evolution, X-Men: The Animated Series
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-23
Updated: 2003-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feygan/pseuds/Feygan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander deals after killing people with his power. warning: pre-slash, het. Xander/Storm, Scott/Jean/Logan, Jubilee/Kitty</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cause and Effect

CHAPTER ONE

.

It's so easy to completely destroy a life. One little tug, and POOF! everything falls apart and only misery is left behind.

Sometimes he thinks that ruining someone's life is funner than just killing them. To take everything away from them, but to leave them alive at the end, to let them spend their last days of life miserable and alone and persecuted by the world around them. It's almost sweet tasting.

His is a truly powerful gift, though he uses it sparingly. He has been warned time and time again about cause and effect, and he has learned his lessons well. His lesser gifts are there free for him to play with, but his Alpha-mutation... the use of that one has to be thought out very carefully, because the consequences can be unexpectedly dire, even if all he did was nudge things a little.

He used to wonder if maybe pieces of him melted away each time he used his power. It was like, after he changed something, a bit more of his soul would be gone at the end of the day. He used to wonder if maybe someday he would look in the mirror and not recognize his own face. He would be someone else through and through, stranger to his own skin.

He didn't worry anymore, though. It didn't seem to matter. What would be, would be, and he would take it as it came.

The Danger Room was where he spent most every afternoon, training harder and longer than most anyone else. The only one that trained harder than him was Wolverine, and that didn't really count because amnesiac-Wolverine didn't really seem to have a life outside of the Institute, not one that he cared to mention anyway.

Xander knew that he didn't have much, but at least he had a beautiful girlfriend, a gorgeous best friend, and the letters he shared with his old best friend Willow. He hadn't seen her in years, but they still corresponded regularly through e-mail and snail-mail both. Every message he sent to or received from her made him feel a warm surge of contentment deep inside, that even though the X-Men were a huge--colossal, major--part of his life, they were not the be all and end all of his existence. If he wanted, he could find himself some kind of a future outside of the Institute. He wasn't trapped in his mutant, superhero skin. He could be someone else if he wanted, and it was only his choice to stay that kept him living this life day by day.

Wolverine though... all the guy had was Marie, his senseless lust for Jean, and his envy of Scott and the "perfect" life he had. It was kind of pitiful really, though kind of understandable. You live that long then lose your memory, and all you'd have at the end of the day was what you could find for yourself.

While he wasn't exactly close to Logan, Xander could understand where the guy was coming from, and there was a definite vibe between Scott and Logan. For the sake of his friend, Xander was perfectly willing to give Wolverine a chance. And he seriously liked Logan more than he did Jean.

Now he had a lot more in common with Logan than he'd ever had, which meant he had to like him more. That was the way things were supposed to work. You get shared interests, bond a little, and BOOM! friends forever, or something like that. He wasn't completely one hundred percent sure of the mechanics of it all. Though he knew it had something to do with someone not being alive anymore, at least in this case.

I don't think I've ever killed anyone before, not like this, he thought, almost wonderingly. If I've ever killed someone with my powers, then I don't remember it. Today is a day of firsts.

Xander dragged a hand through his hair. He was pretty sure that he should be more bothered about taking a human life than he was. In fact, he was more worried about not feeling much of anything than he was about actually killing people. It was pretty weird.

"Hey Xannie, you all right?"

Xander turned and gave Scott a bright grin. "Fine. How about you?"

"Living. I was really worried there for a minute, you know? I thought for sure there were too many of them and we weren't going to get out of there alive."

Xander patted him on the shoulder. "Better not let the minions hear you talk like that, Scotty. They'll get all scared and wet their pants. Leader boy's always supposed to be in control, no matter the situation."

They stood off to one side in their own little well of silence, away from the other X-Men. Scott was always careful never to be overheard when he voiced his doubts. He was a conscientious field leader, and he didn't make stupid mistakes, never made any mistake more than once.

Xander couldn't say as much. He'd made some bad mistakes in his time, though he never let them get him down. Like Machiavelli wrote, "The ends justify the means." So as long as things ended up the way they were supposed to, who cared about the few little hitches along the way? Like the fact that Xander had killed twenty people today--more than killed them, wiped them out of existence. It was as if those seventeen men and three women had never existed.

Being as powerful as he was, he knew that it was a little like being God. He had the ability to literally change peoples' destinies. He had control over whether a person lived or died. It was a terrifying power. And he'd used it today... for the good of the team.

What a load of crap, he thought. I didn't do it for the team. The team would have survived the loss of one member. I did it for Scott. There's no way he would have been able to go on all guilt free with Logan's body cold on the ground. Those two need each other, even if they're too pigheaded to admit it yet. I couldn’t let things end like that. So I killed a bunch of people. Who cares. They were trying to kill us. They deserved to die. It doesn't matter, and no one ever has to know.

That was the great thing about his prime mutation. Once he made a change, no one but him had to know about it unless he wanted them to.

Scott thought that they had walked into an ambush of forty humans with guns, mostly small arms and a few machine guns. They had been badly outnumbered, but they were the X-Men and they had won through, even if it hadn't been the whole team, just Scott, Xander, Logan, and the two junior members Jubilee and Kitty. What Scott didn't know was that there had originally been sixty humans with machine guns, rocket launchers and grenades. Scott didn't know that Logan had been about to die a bloody, painful death at the hands of bigoted human supremacists.

The minute Xander had seen all the enemies facing their small group, he had known things were way out of control. They had fought with all the power of the possessed, but they were being driven back. Then Xander had seen the blue dot over Logan's heart turn critical red.

When he was looking at people, Xander could see who was going to live and who was going to die. It looked to him like they were overlaid with a kind of holographic image. Over their hearts were fist-sized blobs of color with the silver tendrils of possibility flowing from their cores. The blobs told him what was going to happen to a person; when they were blue, the person was in normal health, gray was someone with some kind of slow-acting debilitating sickness like cancer, pink veins running through a blue dot was a future pregnancy, two blue dots overlapping was a pregnancy, and red meant the person was going to die. And when the person died, their dot faded to black before disappearing, and once that happened, their fate was set and not even Xander could bring them back.

It had been while he was clawing at enemies and shooting plasma bolts that Xander had glanced over at his teammates and been horrified to see Logan's dot flashing red. He had seen the danger coming--a woman with a rocket launcher--and known that it was already too late. There was no way that Logan could save himself--adamantium was about to be spread out all over the place.

So Xander had done what needed to be done.

Every enemy armed with a rocket launcher or grenade was instantly blipped out of existence. With one powerful tug of their threads, POOF! none of them were ever born. It was like magic, a glorious, wonderful, evil, orgasmic magic. With barely any effort at all, twenty people died, killed so thoroughly that no one would ever remember them and nothing they had ever done was real... even whatever children they had or would have had someday.

For all Xander knew, he had killed a hundred people, a thousand, a million, with one burst of power. It should have frightened him, sickened him, made him writhe in a horror of guilt. But it didn't. It just didn't seem to matter at all.

He knew he was a murderer, but as long as no one knew what he had done, it didn't seem to count against him. It was a strange and hazy kind of middle land where on one side of the divide he was covered in the blood of his victims, and on the other side he was shining with a terrifying kind of purity. He had cleansed the world of a bacterial problem. Those lives were nothing to his power.

In the moment that he had Reached with his power and snuffed out those lives, he had felt impossibly strong. But vibrating through the back of his mind a tiny voice had screamed at him to "Watch out! Consequences can be dire!" Accompanying the voice was the unexpected, upside-down image of a smooth chest covered in strange gray circles. It gave him a sense of fear and great sadness.

Xander had pulled himself back before he killed all of the enemies. He just focused on the ones that were a real danger, the ones that could actually hurt them.

Once the twenty were gone, he fell back into his usual position as third-in-command of the X-Men, which basically meant nothing. When they were in the field, Scott was in command and Xander was just a grunt, there to fight the enemies and follow orders.

With fists, claws, and plasma bursts, Xander helped to drive their enemies back, pretending that that was all he offered the fight. No one had to know what he had done. They just had to know that they had survived today, that no one had died.

Now, shining in the sunlight coming from the hole knocked through the ceiling, Scott was lit from within. To see him, it was obvious that he was the born leader of the X-Men. He was beautiful, every line of his body telling a story of compassion and strength, willing to protect everyone in his care.

Xander knew that he didn't shine nearly as bright. He loved the X-Men--they were his family--but he had more of a willingness to get his hands dirty. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do to save the people he loved, and it marked him. Scott still had the purity of high ideals; Xander didn't allow himself that luxury.

"All right guys, let's get out of here," Scott called, pulling his arm from Xander's shoulders and going off to gather up the others.

Xander sighed, already missing the human contact. He squared his shoulders and went to fulfill his own job of making sure no evidence of their presence here was left behind. He didn't feel a bit guilty for what he'd done, not at all.

"You all right, Fatey-boy?"

He turned at the call, offering Logan a small smile. He hadn't even noticed the man's approach, but it wasn't like that was something new. Logan had the walk of a cat on the hunt. "Don't call me that," Xander said, "and everything's fine, just like I told leader boy." He jerked a thumb at Scott, busy chivvying the troops. "I think I need a shower though."

Logan glanced at the blood staining Xander's now human shaped hands. His lip pulled up a little, but there was no real disgust in his eyes. His own claws had been stained with much worse in their time. "Yeah, you don't want to touch Storm with those. Cyke ought to put a shower in the Blackbird for quick cleanups."

"Hey, that's a good idea. Remind me to bring that up at the next command meeting." Xander slapped Logan on the back. "You better get out to the jet with the rest of the monkeys. I gotta do my job now."

"You really have to explain how you do that again," Logan said.

"It's easy, Wolvie," Xander said, unselfconsciously borrowing Jubilee's personal nickname for Logan. He was one of the few people Wolverine let get away with such disrespect. "I just grab the fate threads and warp reality so none of this ever happened."

"Does that mean you can bring people back to life and stuff? And for right now, won't it make it so we never won the battle?" Logan asked.

Xander shrugged. "Naw, not if I don't want it to happen that way. I can control what my power effects so that only the damage is cleared away, not us beating these guys bloody."

"That's a powerful gift," Logan said.

"Yes, and sometimes it's not a gift, but a curse, because there are some things that never should be changed, no matter how much you want to make things different. People die for a reason, and you can't bring everyone back. Consequences can be dire."

"'Consequences can be dire?'" Logan snorted. "That sounds like something from a fortune cookie."

Xander couldn't help laughing. "Yeah, probably. I don't know where I heard it, but it really stuck. Whenever I'm about to do something big, that saying pops in my head and it keeps me from being stupid. It just feels important or something."

Logan leaned closer, lowering his voice for Xander's ears alone. "You don't think Chuck might have put a little suggestion in your mind, do you? To try and keep you in line, or something?"

"I don't know." Xander shrugged. "For all I know, he might have, but it doesn't matter. It's a helpful idea that I don't want to forget. Everything I do with my powers has consequences, cause and effect and all that. A moment to pause and think about what I'm doing and what it might mean is worth the fear that Xavier's been crawling through my head a little. Just as long as he doesn't do anything more to me."

"At least I'm not the only one with the trust issues." Logan shared a wink of camaraderie with him before walking off.

Xander grinned at his back. It was good not to be so alone with his doubts. They were the only two people at the Institute that didn't trust Xavier implicitly. As though their doubts were completely unfounded... like a guy that could walk through peoples' heads with childish simplicity wasn't going to use his powers as long as he though he could get away with it without being caught.

Scott herded the others out of the building. "Have fun with the cleanup, Fate," he called with a smile, before disappearing out the door.

Xander shook his head. Sometimes Scott was a real ass, and he wasn't even really trying. He smirked a little and got down to the task at hand.

Squinting his eyes in concentration, Xander Reached out, weaving the tattered threads back into their proper order. Ruined furniture and walls wanted to be the way they had been made, and as long as he got to them soon enough after they were broken or changed--when the threads were still torn and hadn't reformed in their new shape--he could put them back the way they had been.

Within moments and with very little effort at all, the building was back the way it had been before they'd entered. All the damage had been fixed, except that the men and women that had attacked them were still lying limp on the floor, bloodied and unconscious.

Sighing, Xander rolled his head on his shoulders, listening to his neck pop and crack as the tension was relieved. He headed toward the door, shoving his hands in his pockets. With a little smile, he pursed his lips and began to whistle a jaunty tune.

All in all, everything had worked out perfectly today. After coming out to the warehouse on the false lure of a mutant sighting, they had fought off the largely unexpected ambush by an overwhelming number of nameless enemies. They had won the day, and now they were heading home and none of the X-Men had died or even received the most minor of injuries.

As he headed toward the waiting Blackbird, he was careful not to think about the twenty men and women he had killed. They didn't matter. They were the Enemy.

.  
.

* * *

 

CHAPTER TWO

.

Skin like smooth chocolate and just as sweet against his tongue, though now he was tasting the best part of her, the part only he was allowed access to. As he caressed her bare flesh and massaged his tongue over her clit, he rolled his eyes upward so he could watch her face. Seeing her as she got off was the best thing ever. To help him be able to watch her he always had her prop her upper body up on pillows. She'd wondered about it the first time they did this, but now she kind of liked knowing he watched her. She was such a little exhibitionist when it was just them in the bedroom.

Right now she was squirming and moaning deliciously, only his arm over her hips keeping her from bucking out of his grasp, thus destroying her fun completely as his mouth lost contact with her happy spot. With a wet-lipped smirk, he sucked on her clit, rolling his tongue as he worked. Her moaning went up like three notes to reach a range that should have shattered glass and deafened dogs.

Just as she came her eyes shot open, swirling white. Her hair began to lift up off her pillow as her head thrashed back and forth. The skin on her neck spread tight over the cords in her throat as she dug the back of her head into the pillow.

"Oh Goddess! Xander! XAN-der! XANDER!"

When she was done coming, Xander sat up, wiping his mouth with his arm. "Hey baby, I like it when you do that."

She gasped for breath before rolling her eyes to focus on him. "What do you mean?" she asked.

He grinned at her. "When you come in my mouth, I can taste the crackle of energy and I can feel little lightning bolts sparking off my teeth. It's so cool."

She pulled herself up and reached down for him. He met her halfway, letting himself be pulled into her arms, resting his head on her chest.

"I love you," Ororo said.

He licked her left nipple, making her gasp and wriggle against him. She was always so damn sensitive after an orgasm; he liked it a lot. "I love you too, baby. What are we going to do tomorrow?"

"Teaching the little people, then training in the Danger Room," she said.

Xander made a face. "Ew. How 'bout after that we go out on the town? I'll buy you a spectacularly overpriced dinner and we'll watch a blockbuster movie leftover from last summer while munching on horribly expensive popcorn. What do you think of that plan?"

She stroked a hand through his hair. "Hm, overpriced food versus eating in the dining room with the other animals? I wonder... Think, think, think... Yes! Of course I'll let you buy me dinner, and afterward I'll reward you in amazingly acrobatic ways."

He grinned so happily that it made her heart want to melt. Few people ever got to see this Xander. He made jokes and was friendly, but it was only in the privacy of their bedroom that he was so open and unrestrainedly emotional. He trusted her enough to put down his guard. It made her feel special.

"Just to show you how much I love you," he said, "I will now clean you up."

"You are just going to get me a damp towel right, nothing funny?"

Xander smirked. "Would I ever do anything the easy way? This is my chance to show off my totally awesome and truly wondrous cosmic powers." He waved his hands in the air, making "mystical" gestures.

She groaned and rolled her eyes. "Please don't hurt me."

"Ah baby, this is all about trust."

"How so?" Ororo asked doubtfully, squinting her eyes at him.

He leant up to press a kiss against her nose. "Easy. Like, I trust you to toss me up in the air in a funnel of wind, or I trust you to shoot off lightning bolts right next to my balls. Gotta tell you, baby, there are very few people in this world that I trust enough to let 'em play with 200,000 volts of electricity near the little man. You're like the only one. Heck, I don't even let Scott look at my crotch even with the visor on, and he's my avowed best friend. Says a lot."

"You're not going to go into that whole 'yellow crayon' thing again, are you?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He laughed, liking how her nipple hardened when his breath blew across it. "No, this isn't about the whole Willow-used-to-be-my-best-friend-before-I-had-to-move-away-suddenly-and-come-to-the-Institute thing. Though I gotta admit, the way I just suddenly left my old life and everything behind has probably warped me in unimaginable ways... but no. This is about an issue of trust, and I want you to know that in all the world, you, Ororo, are both the woman I love and the person I trust the most. I never want you to doubt that."

"Why would I?" she asked. "I know that you love me, and I love you. Why would I ever think otherwise?"

He turned his face away from hers, pressing his cheek tight against her chest, listening to her heartbeat. "You might never doubt that I love you, but... Things happen in our lives, Ororo, things that normal people never have to deal with. I doubt Joe Ordinary on the street goes out and has super battles. And there are bad people out there that want to hurt us. I have to take all that into consideration, and I wanted you to know that even if someday it looks like I'm fighting for the other side, I'm not." He lifted his head, looking straight into her eyes, willing her to see the sincerity. "No matter what happens, I love you, and I'm fighting for you. No matter what... someone... might say, I wanted you to know that. I trust you. I love you. And I never want to let you go."

Ororo wrapped her arms around his head, pressing him closer against her. "Don't be a fool, my love. You will never have to let me go... because I will be holding onto you as tight as I can. You can't let go, because I'll hold you to me." She gave his head another hugging squeeze, then let go, lightly teasing his dark hair with just her fingertips.

Xander got his knees up under him and rose above her, bending his neck to kiss her deeply. "Then that's enough."

After a moment, he pulled away, casting an amused glance over the rumpled, sweaty sheets. "Now that that's out of the way, let's clean this up a little, huh?"

She lay back, her arms limp at her sides, her legs still parted to allow him access. "You said you were going to clean me up, so get to it."

"Ooh, girl's cracking the whip." He sat up, concentrating for a moment.

The sheets and pillows had been freshly laundered before they'd had sex on them, and they themselves had been clean. It took very little effort to put everything back the way it had been, though he left the inner workings of their bodies the way they were.

He could have made it so they'd never had sex at all. He could have cleared away any sign of their passion, but he didn't want to lose that gentle ache, that warm satiation that flowed throughout them both. So he just cleaned away the outer signs of what they'd done, freshening their bodies and the bedding.

"That better?" he asked.

Ororo shifted a little, sliding the backs of her hands across the sheets. "Now there's no more sticky." She ran a hand through her hair. A smile graced her beautiful face. "It feels too clean. Maybe we should get dirty again."

Xander threw himself down on his pillow next to her, reaching out to pull her against his side. "Nuh uh. We both need some sleep for tomorrow. We'll try some shower sex in the morning, how about that?"

She yawned prettily and laid her head on his shoulder. "Fine then. Tomorrow morning in the shower with the soap."

"Lame, that's so lame," he whispered, already drifting off.

As he slid into sleep, he thought he heard the silent screams of twenty men and women that had never existed, but it might just have been his imagination. Or at least, that's what he told himself it was.

.  
.

* * *

 

CHAPTER THREE

.

"Can you believe how totally in love they are?"

Jubilee shook her head. "No. It's just so not fair. Scott and Jean, and Xander and Ororo. They're like the two most perfect couples in the world. It's kind of icky squicky, you know?"

Kitty grinned at her friend. "Yeah. But we're just bitter 'cause neither of us has a sweety to squeeze on. We're, like, the typical jealous girls lusting after the sex-having couples."

Jubilee giggled. "That's so stupid it's funny. Come on. Let's go eat. I'm starving."

"I don't know how someone so skinny can put that much food away," Kitty said, but went with her toward the table where the usual buffet-style breakfast was set up.

Jubilee couldn't help the smile that kept twitching her lips and it took a whole lot of effort to keep sparks from jumping off the tips of her fingers. Kitty was walking close beside her, close enough that their arms brushed as they pushed their way through the mass of hungry kids.

Every bit of contact with Kitty made Jubilee's heart race that much faster. Her palms were damp, she was nervous, she felt like a complete nerd, she was scared, she was exhilarated... She was just so happy to be next to the one she loved.

A goofy grin broke out on her face, but after a second she was able to wipe it away. There was no reason to be that stupidly obvious.

"What?" Kitty asked.

Jubilee shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing, just thought of something for a minute, but it's gone now."

One side of Kitty's mouth turned up a little, but she didn't ask anything more. "Whatever. Come on, and let's get some food before it's all gone. Those boys are such pigs."

"Yeah, boys are pigs."

 * * *

 Walking into the dining hall on a Tuesday morning, yawning and stretching and wishing he was back in bed, Xander's attention was caught and held by a sight he'd hoped for, but never really thought he'd get to see: Scott and Logan were eating breakfast together.

The two men were seated at one of the staff tables alone, talking quietly as they ate. Scott's head was cocked a little to one side as he leaned in closer to catch every word Logan said. After a minute, he laughed, the sound reaching all the way to where Xander stood statue still in the midst of the ebb and flow of hungry teenagers.

"What'cha doin' Mr. Harris?" a young voice asked.

Xander turned to smile at Ray. "Nothing much, just getting some coffee." He shook his empty coffee cup a little.

"Ew, how can you drink that stuff?" Ray asked. "The cook makes everything all great and everything, but the coffee is like just flushed sewer water after Big Fat Bastard used the toilet."

"Thanks for that graphic imagery," Xander said, making a face. "If you're not careful, you're going to make it so I can't ever drink coffee again, then you'll be sorry."

"Why's that, sir?" Ray asked, curious.

"Because, Mr. Xander here is a complete and total grump without his twelve cups of morning coffee," Ororo said, coming up behind him. She wrapped her arms around Xander and leaned her chin on his shoulder to peer at the boy in front of him. "The only thing that drags him out of his cave is the scent of Cook's coffee burning to the bottom of the pot. Who do you think taught Cook how to make it like that? It's not like any of the rest of us can drink it. That's why Scott always has to go to Starbucks in the morning. He can function enough without caffeine to operate a motor vehicle and is really quite cheerful while doing it... which means he gets to buy the rest of us actual coffee. It's right on the list of chores for him to do every morning."

"Too much info, babe," Xander said, turning his head so their noses brushed.

She laughed and pulled away, rubbing her nose. "That tickles."

"It's supposed to," Xander said. He looked back at the teenager. "Listen and learn, Ray, my man. Nose tickles are the secret weapon of the coupley-couple. If your woman's given you grief... just break out the Eskimo kisses. Works like magic."

The boy shook his head and backed away, making a face. "Enough with the lovey-dovey, already. Old people gettin' it on... I don't need to see that. You're gonna warp my fragile little mind."

"Old people?! Why I ought ta..." Xander mimed taking a swing at him. Ray ducked and laughed before racing off to meet his friends at the section of table housing the hash browns. Xander turned to Ororo. "Can you believe that? Us, old people?"

She smirked, not bothered in the slightest. "It had to happen sometime. To a bunch of fifteen and sixteen year olds, we're ancient at twenty-two and twenty-five. It's just the way the world works."

"Yeah, but at least you're older than me, which means you're older people." He yelped when she pinched his ass. "Hey, delicate body part there."

"Oh I'm sure, Mr. Pillow Butt. Why don't you go get your coffee while I get something to eat and try to calm down from your 'older people' comment, huh?"

He turned and gave her a kiss, just a light brush of lips. From the way the kids hooted and hollered, they might as well have been having sweaty sex in the middle of the buffet table, with food falling all around them and squishing under their writhing bodies. Just the thought of it made him hard.

"All right, you guys, eat your breakfasts and calm down," he called, waving a hand at their audience. "The show's over now, and the kissage will cease."

"Boo! Give us some more!" Kitty yelled, jumping up and down. "Take off your shirt!"

Jubilee looked at her friend, but didn't add anything. Usually she would have yelled right along with Kitty, but right now... it was like all the words had dried up in her throat. One look at the graceful lines of Kitty's body bobbing up and down in front of her and she just didn't have anything to say. She could almost see Kitty's nipples through her shirt.

Whoa, what is the deal with that? she thought. Kitty's my best friend. I so shouldn’t be checking out her rack. Besides, she's a girl. What's going on with me?

With no answers to her internal question, she just quietly trailed along beside Kitty to their usual table. Rogue and St. John were already waiting, laughing and talking, making fun of the way sleepy Bobby still managed to shovel food in his mouth with his eyes closed.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Kitty asked, sliding into her seat.

Rogue smiled at them, gloved fingers twirling her fork around and around in the air. "Well, ya'll won't believe what Bobby did..."

 * * *

 Who would have thought talking to Cyke would be so interesting? Usually the guy acted like he had a six foot pole jammed up his ass sideways, but right now he was being pretty decent and was actually funny with the stories.

Logan had never seen Scott's face so animated. It was like seeing the guy for the first time.

He's actually pretty cute, Logan thought. Sure, he's got that cold kind of man-beauty going for him usually, but when he's like this, he's cute too. He seems human for once, not the perfect little X-Man.

"And then Xanny climbs out of the huge puddle just covered in mud, and he's all glaring at Ororo. He says, 'Storm, don't you think you could have put that somewhere else? I thought your aim was better than that.' And she's all, 'Xander, my love, what makes you think my aim was off?' It was so funny! You should have seen the look on Xanny's face."

"Why do you call him that?" Logan asked suddenly.

"Call him what?" Scott asked, cocking his head. It was hard to tell what he was thinking with the visor on, but Logan could smell curiosity.

"You call Xander 'Xanny.' Why do you call him that? Nobody else here does." Logan tried to push the surge of jealousy away. He had no reason to be jealous of Scott and Xander; there was absolutely nothing between them. They were just friends.

Scott made a "Hm" noise in his throat. "I never really thought about it," he said. "I don't even remember when I started calling him that. It was like, just one day I woke up and he wasn't Xander anymore... he was Xanny. Kind of strange really." His mouth twisted as he thought.

"Don’t worry about it," Logan said after a minute. Scott was starting to smell a little worried, like there was a whole realm of things he was wondering about. "Sometimes nicknames start like that."

"I guess." Scott didn't sound sure, but he was willing to let it go. "So, what are you going to do today, Logan?"

Logan shrugged. "Teach a few kids how to kill things with their bare hands and watch soap operas until the training session in the afternoon. You?"

Scott smirked. "Pretty much the same, though my schedule involves two math classes, a few hours of auto repair, and a short history lesson. Ororo's asked me to take over one of her classes today. She and Xanny are going out tonight, so she wanted something special."

Logan made an "ooh" face. "Those two are really in for each other, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Scott said. "Charles has had to talk to them a few times about 'inappropriate displays of affection' in front of the children. They never do anything too hot and heavy, but... you can totally see how wild they are behind closed doors." He leaned in closer to Logan, lowering his voice. "I walked in on them once. I though Jean and I were crazy, but those two... it was like the Discovery Channel. I had to take like six showers."

They laughed, turning to glance at Xander and Ororo at the same time. The couple was seated at the other staff table, quietly eating their breakfast and talking. They were both incredibly attractive, but they didn't look like they were about to go all wild and crazy, but that was just for the moment. It usually took Xander awhile to restart his motor in the morning... he was seriously not a before-noon kind of guy.

 * * *

 "They’re looking at us and laughing," Xander observed, bringing a mouthful of scrambled eggs to his mouth.

"Ignore them," Ororo suggested, sipping her juice and staring off into the distance. She could feel the rainstorm hitting the next town over. "If you don't give them the satisfaction of noticing them, they’ll lose interest and look away."

"You've been reading too many child psychology books, baby, that stuff doesn't work in real life. This isn't about pack behavior, herd mentality, or whatever. This is about them looking at us and laughing. That's a whole 'nother story."

Her face didn't change expression as she kicked him lightly in the shin under the table. "Just pretend you don't notice. It's not like they're going to say anything to our faces."

"I guess..." he said reluctantly.

"You are such a child sometimes," she sighed.

He grinned at her. "But you love me anyway, right?"

"If I must, I must."

They went back to eating their breakfast, pretending not to know that Scott and Logan were talking about them and laughing. Life was too short to get upset about the little things.

 * * *

 After working in the lab since five in the morning, Jean was ready for a bit of breakfast and a carafe of coffee. Her neck muscles were stiff from leaning over her microscope and her glasses had pinched the sides of her nose, making the skin achy and sore. She needed to go back to the optometrist soon.

Wearing a red cashmere sweater and a red skirt, she walked down the hallway to the dining room, liking the official sounding "clack-clack-clack" of her red pumps on the hard wood floor. She had pinned her red hair back from her face and wore just enough makeup to wipe a few years off her apparent age. She knew she was attractive, the most beautiful female at the Institute. About the only person that could give her a run for her money in the looks department was Scott, and he didn't count because he was her boyfriend.

The double doors of the dining room had been propped open like every morning. Inside she could hear the loud chatter of teenagers stuffing their faces. Sometimes the animal sound of it all put her teeth on edge. Disgusting noise when there should have been the quiet of contemplation and learning.

Walking into the room, she automatically strengthened her mental shields. She didn't need the press of hormone driven minds shattering her control.

Glancing around the room, she saw that the Terrible Trio--Bobby, Rogue and St. John--were sitting with the Danger Duo--Jubilee and Kitty. The five of them were probably thinking up stupid things to do that would add to Jean's already out of control workload. Sometimes she just wanted to start yelling at them and never stop, but she knew that wouldn't endear her with some of the rougher personalities around the mansion. She had to play it cool.

Storm and Xander were sitting close together as they ate breakfast, their attention totally on each other. Sometimes their complete togetherness made her want to be sick. Storm could have done so much better than Xander. Sure, the guy practically worshipped the ground she walked on, but really... he was just such an ass.

As though feeling her eyes upon him, Xander glanced up at Jean. She flushed and hurriedly looked away. There was just something about him that creeped her out. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn't read his mind. He was just this blind spot on her radar and he could be thinking absolutely anything, and she would never know. It made her uncomfortable, almost afraid, though she would never tell anyone that. She was Jean Grey after all.

Sighing, she turned to see if Scott was at their usual table. She always liked to have a place marked out where she was going to sit. It cleared up confusion later and kept herself from being embarrassed. She still remembered her teenage years with a definite lack of fondness.

She was surprised to see Scott sitting with Logan, the two men talking. Neither one had noticed her entrance.

For some reason, their friendliness toward each other and lack of attention for her made something churn in Jean's belly. She wasn't sure she could name the emotion burning through her, but it made her want to do crazy things, like grab a cup full of water and pour it over someone's head.

Gritting her teeth, she grabbed a tray and plate and began gathering together a perfectly balanced breakfast. Two years ago she had noticed that she was starting to get a little flabby around the hips, and ever since then she'd been watching what she ate. A skintight leather superhero costume wasn't as forgiving as cotton; there really wasn't any room in her uniform for added weight.

Nodding her head at the greetings her students gave her, she walked over to the table where Scott and Logan sat. She pasted a smile on her face and telekinetically moved a strand of hair back into position. She knew she was beautiful.

"Hello boys," she purred, standing behind them.

Scott turned toward her. For a second, there was something almost like guilt on his face, then he flashed her a dazzling smile. "Jean! I didn't think you were going to make breakfast this morning. I was going to bring you something to eat down in the lab."

"Well, here I am," she said. She glanced from Scott to Logan, giving them bright green eyes. "Is there room for me here?"

"Of course, Red," Logan said, pushing his chair out and standing up. He moved to the next chair down the line, slipping his tray over. "Here, why don't you sit down?" he offered, gesturing at his vacated spot.

"Thank you, Logan," she smiled at him, sitting down. She daintily lay her napkin across her lap. "So, what were you two talking about?"

 * * *

 "Dammit!" Xander hissed, squeezing his hand tight around his fork.

"What's wrong?" Ororo asked, her eyebrows lowering in concern.

He shrugged at her. "Nothing," he said. "Don't worry about it. There's nothing wrong."

Xander's eyes were dragged back to the other table where Jean was seated like a queen between Scott and Logan. The two men had been getting along perfectly, so of course she had to plant her skinny butt right between them. It was just so damn frustrating!

Xander had really thought things were starting to change, that Scott and Logan were going to have a chance to work things out. So of course, Jean had to stick herself in the middle yet again. If only she would just get out of the way...

"I guess it's not going to be today," Xander murmured. He sighed and looked back at Ororo, focusing on his own love. "So what do you think of Skell's chances of graduating?" he asked.

Ororo shook her head. "It's hard to know. He's been trying hard lately, but it might just be a case of too little, too late."

"Sounds familiar," Xander said, unable to help himself. At her confusion, he shrugged. "Just thinking about something else. Um, do you think he might be able to bring his grade point average up with a little extra tutoring? I'm pretty sure I can free up some time somehow."

She lay her hand over his, her expression softening even as he watched. She never had to play the cold, weather goddess with him. "You're always thinking about your students. That's why you're such a great teacher. The children really love you."

He blushed a little, but shrugged it off. "I'm just doing my job, nothing more. The X-Men are my family, and I like to take care of them, even when a lot of them don't even know they need my help."

"You are a good man, my love," she said.

"I try to be. But sometimes things happen," twenty people dying in an instant, "and I can't help doubting myself."

"Don't you do that, not ever. You are a good man, a great man, because you care so much about a bunch of children that most of the normal world would happily see exterminated. You care about them all so much, and I am so proud of you." Ororo clenched her hand over his. "I don't know what life would have been like without you here, but I know it wouldn't have been this good. We might all have been dead by now, but you always protect us and keep us safe. I love you so much."

"I love you too, Ororo."

She moved closer, leaning her forehead against his. Their noses brushed lightly, but neither one cared. She looked right into his eyes, seeing him all the way through.

"I love you no matter what," she said. "I don't care about what you did yesterday, Xander. I don't care, because I know it was for the good of the team, and I know you're a good man and would never do anything truly evil. I love you."

Tears sparkled in Xander's eyes. "I... I didn't want you to know," he whispered.

"I always know," she said. "I just don't care, because I knew it was for the right reasons. You were protecting us all, Xander. You are loyal to a fault. And I still love you anyway." A soft smile curved her lips, but it was a sad one too.

He drew in a hitching breath, raising a hand to stroke against her cheek, feeling the feather brush of his own wrist against the side of his face. "You're so beautiful," he said. "My glorious, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, wonderful storm queen."

"I am yours forever, Xander. No matter what you do."

Xander finally pushed away the last, shadowed thought of those twenty men and women. As long as Ororo still loved him, he didn't have to think about them anymore. Everything was all right again.

The X-Men were safe for another day.


End file.
